IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 27, 2012
Sparky Harlan, director of the Bill Wilson Center and Cedrick Chan and Yau Gene Chan
from international Technological University in San Jose
We are excited to launch the second event that will be under the brand Digital Media Festival, (DMF) and after a meetup with staff, filmmakers and program heads from Hollywood, San Francisco and Silicon Valley at Kepler's Bookstore last week the Event is launched... this September 1 & 2, StartUp Event is going to be very historic
in and of itself.
All schedule information is at: DigitalMediaFestival.com
South by Southwest, meets the Consumer Electronic Show and the Sundance Film Festival twice a year in Silicon Valley. An Expo and Festival where funders, founders, celebrities, entrepreneurs, film and digital media producers, press, technology firms, programmers, green developers, engineers, technology companies, meetup groups, and others involved with the historic convergence of technology, social networking
and the entertainment business will come together in Silicon Valley California and online Globally.
Most of the events in 2012 and 2013 will take place in Mountain View, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, and with some events in San Francisco and San Jose in the year 2014. Some of the venues included will be the Computer Museum, Kepler's Book Store, the Guild Theater, Dragon Theater, Stanford Park Hotel, Zibibbo, Cafe Borrone, International Technological University and more to be announced.
Beyond the actual festival in Silicon Valley, the Digital Media Festival will be online world wide streaming live, and virtually live after the festival 24/7/365. If you Google or Bing search "digital media festival" we are #1.
During the event in Silicon Valley the festival will Skype various producers and guest from other states and countries into the festival. The virtual festival will be programmed in April 2013, on Openfilm.com/channels/
Digital-Media-Festival, in a partnership with James Caan, and Robert Duvall, via their Independent premium video sharing website. The festival will be programmed on Youtube, Ustream.tv, Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites Internetworked through DigitalMediaFestival.com, during and after the festival.
During the April 2013 Festival and Expo, there will be simultaneous events in Honk Kong, France, India, Hollywood, and from a wine vineyard in Paso Robles, California. The DMF will be truly International, Interactive and on the cutting edge of technology.
Festival founder and producer, Benford Standley has been in the entertainment business for 40 plus years, working with the likes of Bob Dylan, Merle Haggard, Eric Clapton, Les Paul, and many others, and ventured into live streaming on the Internet in 1995, with a online concert in 1997 with Willie Nelson. In 1999, he began the first of four years of streaming the Malibu Film Festival online. His first "Digital Film Festival" was in 2008, and was attended by Clint Eastwood, Kevin Bacon, producer Sir. Nigel Sinclair, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Johnny Rivers and many greats in film and music. Standley is presently relocating to Silicon Valley and pledges to keep the festivals evolving in these exponential times.
Streaming, Internet TV, VOD, multimedia, multiplatform, digital media and mobile is no doubt the future of the entertainment business. The immediate future will see the further development and growth of Internet Television, iPads, iPhones and the huge paradigm shift taking place in the film and television business. At the same time a new evolution of "film" festivals is now evolving with our Digital Media Festival. The word "film" is becoming obsolete, may sound a little radical, but "The Times They Are A-Changin'" As seen in Keanu Reeves new movie "Side by Side" we see inside the paradigm shift we are seeing evolve in the digital age.
We are very excited at the lineup for the September 2012, and the April 2013, festivals. Over the next few months the lineup of celebrities, entrepreneurs, digital media producers, programmers, filmmakers for the April 2013 event will grow. The feature movies, documentaries, shorts and sections on photography and music will take the participants into the future of entertainment.
With the September lineup of films being programmed with the story line and theme FROM FILM TO THE DIGITAL AGE, we'll travel through history with Cass Warner's "The Brothers Warner" about the history of Warner Brothers. Filmmaker Eric Christensen will show his documentary on an important event known as the "Trips Festival 1966", Erin Murphy, who's dad Dudley Murphy directed the classic movie "Saint Louis Blues" with Bessie Smith, will screen the movie and talk about those early days of film.
The DMF is very honored to have Stanford professor and department head, author and historian Fred Turner, who wrote the book "From Counter Culture to Cyber Culture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism," attend the Saturday September 1st event, and present a talk on the rich history of the Silicon Valley, it’s technology, psychedelic and technological story. Kevin Kelly said, “Turner’s insight into what happened in the last thirty years is the most useful one I’ve seen yet.”
Traveling down that same digital trail the festival will pay special tribute to award winning producer/director Len Dell'Amico, who is known as the Grateful Dead's "video guy," and screening his new feature movie "Welcome To Dopeland." Len’s film/documentary on the Jerry Garcia Band, most of which was shot at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Silicon Valley. Saturday Sept. 1st is all about the music and technological history of Silicon Valley. Joining Len on a panel will be Eric Christensen, and Nicholas Meriwether, the Grateful Dead archivist at the University of Santa Cruz, Fred Turner, moderated by festival producer/music historian Benford Standley in a panel discussion on the history of Silicon Valley, the Grateful Dead and the Digital Age...
Sunday, Max Gail, actor, social activist and techno geek , will take the lead in LAPing and moderating circular panels with some very interesting characters discussing topics of interest to digital media producers and directors, programmers, engineers, venture capital firms, entrepreneurs, angel investors in the entertainment world of film, music, photography, and social networking. Max is best known for his role as Det. Stan "Wojo" Wojeciehowicz from the sitcom Barney Miller (1975), and many other roles over the decades in film and television. He directs a organization called LAP.org, a organizing concept for communities to develop a useful on-line/interactive venue in a way that can facilitate the creation of content for as well as access to the information age.
Last, but very certainly not least, the festival will be dedicated to help bring attention to the historic plight of homeless and runaway children and youth, in the Silicon Valley, California and the world. The Festival is making a challenge to Silicon Valley programmers, engineers, and technology companies to design and create new ideas to help the Bill Wilson Center, that serves over 10,000 youth and their family members every year in the Silicon Valley. Attending the festival is Sparky Harlan Executive Director of the Center. Just last month she returned from Washington DC, where the President honored Ms. Harlan and fifteen other people in the Nation as leaders in this effort to help homeless children in the United States. Sparky will make a presentation at 1 p.m. Sunday, then join in a very interesting circle panel where Sparky and some of the kids from the Center will be part of a discussion. In April at the Festival the actress Dyan Cannon will screen her new documentary on runaways that live in the streets of Hollywood, California.
Date, times, locations and more surprise guest can be found on the festival website at:
FOR MORE INFORMATION or, PICTURES:
Call: 650-223-0300
Email: digitalmediafest@gmail.com
go to website Press room at:
digitalmediafestival.com/digital_pressPg.htm
